Box Set: Rune Alexander- Vol. 4-5.5 (Rune Alexander Box Set Book 2)

by Laken Cane

  “No,” she screamed, and went for the men, their guns, and their hatred. The only thought in her mind was saving her crew.

  Saving the berserker.

  Then she didn’t think of anything but killing the enemy.

  Blood sprayed and the pain of being shot was a mere sting on the edge of her subconscious. Even those she was attempting to protect faded into the dark mist of her mind.

  Her monster wanted to kill.

  That was why it had been created, and it craved everything it had been born for.

  Blood and violence.

  And pain.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  There was the one she sought—Johnson—and he waited with a whole hell of a lot of backup. They’d come to take the monster in.

  Finally, logical thought broke through the haze of red in her mind. If she had a chance in hell at saving her men, she’d have to give herself to Johnson and the strangers who ruled him.

  That was what she wanted anyway—to be taken to the root of the evil.

  She stopped killing with a suddenness that shocked the shooters. The crowd had thinned as some of them tossed their weapons and ran, but the new arrivals stood their ground with a calmness characteristic of professionals.

  She put her hands in the air. “Leave my men alone and I’ll give myself over to you right now,” she said, realizing that the berserker and Jack had tossed Owen into the building and had been fighting beside her.

  Both of them were wounded, but she couldn’t tell how badly. She couldn’t tell how much of the vivid splatters of blood on their bodies had come from the enemy, and how much of it was theirs.

  But they stood there, still breathing. And that was good enough.

  Johnson stepped forward, and he was not alone.

  Her assassin stood beside him.

  Sheriff Wallace stood on his other side.

  “We don’t care about your crew,” Johnson said. His heavy cheeks were crimson, standing out vividly against the paleness. He sported an erection she wouldn’t have noticed had he not continuously pressed his hand against it.

  He swayed on his feet, and the assassin turned his head slowly to stare at him.

  And even though he wore a mask, Rune understood that his look was full of contempt.

  Spread out behind the doctor were several slayers—she knew they were COS not because she recognized their faces, but because every single one of them wore scarlet shirts with COS printed in giant black letters across their chests.

  Fucking slayers.

  “Rune—” the berserker said.

  “You know what you have to do,” she said. “Get the fuck out of here.” The she glanced at him, smiling slightly. “You get doctored up and come find me, Berserker. I’ll be waiting.”

  Without another word, she walked away.

  But he was the berserker, and he wasn’t letting her walk into danger alone.

  And neither was Jack.

  She stopped when she heard their roars, battle cries as familiar to her as breathing. The berserker was without his spear. Both he and Jack fought only with the blades they’d managed to steal from their fallen opponents, their borrowed guns having long since emptied of ammunition.

  They had two blades against a crowd of guns.

  And that was nowhere near enough, even if they were Shiv Crew.

  It just wasn’t.

  They would die there. Die trying to protect her.

  Her, one of the most powerful monsters in the world.

  But to her people, she was…she was Rune.

  And they would die for her.

  “God, no,” she screamed, and shot out her claws, slashing anything near her. She was fast, freakishly fast, and she was scared out of her mind. That gave her something she sometimes lacked, added fuel to the already extreme fire that was her monster.

  Johnson fell, even as the assassin ran. She lost track of him, but Johnson’s decapitated body was trampled beneath the feet of a dozen stampeding cops and the heavy boots of trained fighters.

  Fear choked her.

  She couldn’t save a crew that was unwilling to let her protect them.

  Some of the crowd panicked, sending bullets into the heads and bodies of their friends.

  Berserker, she called, silently, desperately.

  And then she heard him, heard him scream his fury as he battled his way through the crowd.

  She wanted to seek him out, wanted to turn and watch him loose the rage he was famous for, but there was no time for soft love things.

  She had men to kill.

  And she had men to save.

  Really, if she’d gone willingly with the doctor, would they have let her men live?

  No.

  Likely, they would not have.

  So she fought, fought alongside her men, and wished for the others.

  Once, she caught sight of the cowboy, a long blade in one hand, his thin hair flying out behind him as he swirled and dropkicked a man who was using the butt of his rifle as a weapon.

  That was the good thing about blades. They didn’t require reloading and they didn’t run of out of shit in the first place.

  But Owen was not healthy. He should not have been fighting. He was too injured, too compromised.

  She fought her way toward him, her sharp claws sending men into death’s arms with one swipe, and still more people came.

  She kept an eye on Owen, taking note of his slowed reaction, his near falls, his flushed face.

  Shit. Shit.

  The townspeople, law enforcement, and the hired guns should have overwhelmed the crew with sheer numbers, something they hadn’t yet done.

  But they would.

  Owen staggered beneath the blow of a heavy man in a sleeveless blue-jean vest, and behind him, a tall woman with a bandana wrapped around her yellow hair drew back her gun and hit him between his shoulder blades.

  She hit him hard.

  He went down, dropping to his knees, and for one long, heartbreaking second his slender body reminded her of Z.

  “Ah,” she whispered. “Fuck, no.”

  Two men turned their weapons toward her, desperately pulling triggers on empty guns, their eyes rolling as they caught sight of death.

  Someone thrust a blade into her side and there it stayed as she slashed her way through the men who remained between her and the kneeling Owen.

  They couldn’t have him. They couldn’t have any of her crew.

  But he was done. The fight had left him along with his breath when the woman with the bandana had hit him.

  The woman dropped her gun. She grabbed his hair, jerked his head back, and drew a blade from the sheath at her side.

  Rune would have a millisecond to reach him before the bitch cut his throat.

  The woman’s screams as Rune broke her arm turned to moans of shock right before Rune tossed her, dead, into the piles of bodies littering the ground.

  The people of Reverence…it was as though they’d been training their entire lives to kill.

  They were not simply a trigger happy bunch of small town people. They were a fucking killing mob.

  Some of them had either arrived late to the party or managed to find a hiding place in which to reload, because even as Rune decided the crowd was quieting and the crew might make it out alive, she heard the berserker give an anguished cry she’d never before heard from him, and then she was blasted from behind by what felt like a dozen machineguns.

  They cut her down.

  And even the monster could be hurt.

  She flew forward, landing with a force that immediately numbed her face. She spat out one of her teeth, maybe two.

  “Stay down,” someone shouted. She thought it might have been Jack. Or maybe it was her imagination.

  “Fuck you.” She almost made it to her knees before her traitorous body shifted to the side and crashed once more to the pavement.

  “Stay down,” someone pleaded, his voice thin and hurt. “Stay down.”

  She wasn�
�t sure what the hell was going on. Her body wanted to repair itself, and she wanted to let it.

  But there was something else she had to do.

  What the fuck had happened? They had been winning. They’d been destroying a town. Winning…

  She frowned, the edges of her vision too dark and hazy to allow her to see more than a few feet straight in front of her.

  For a second, they probably thought she’d stay down.

  But then, she dragged herself back up, swaying unsteadily on her knees, peering into the shadowed world of Reverence.

  Ah, sweet thing. No…

  “What—”

  They shot her again, cutting her nearly in half as the bullets shattered her ribs and perforated her flesh, throwing her around like a straw-filled target dummy.

  Someone screamed, and the sound pierced her eardrums, stabbing at her delicate brain.

  She needed to get up. She needed to find her men.

  Bastards were kicking her ass, though.

  It occurred to her that there were no sounds. The crowd had quieted as they watched her. The berserker did not roar. Guns did not sound.

  She began to push herself to her knees.

  Someone groaned, and the sound comforted her. She couldn’t see anything and with the silence, it was like…like nothingness.

  But there was pain. That was real.

  She was okay with that.

  “The big one,” a man murmured, his voice almost soothing in the quiet night. “He’s coming around.”

  “He’s not going anywhere. She killed my man. Let her watch while I kill hers.”

  Kill the berserker?

  It was time to get up and show them why she was dangerous. She wasn’t just a monster. She was made of blood and magic. She was born for battles.

  Someone had said that to her, hadn’t they?

  Cold chills raced over her skin, raising gooseflesh, freezing her. She began to shiver.

  She began to heal. Fast.

  “Rune,” the berserker whispered, and somehow, she heard him.

  “I’m here baby,” she said, and once more, she climbed to her feet.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The berserker lay on the ground. He’d been knocked out, his wrists and ankles restrained with zip ties.

  He’d visited hell while she’d been otherwise occupied. Blood was so thick upon his face she couldn’t, for a moment, see whether his eyes were open or closed.

  If not for his hair and his unmistakable body, she wouldn’t have known him.

  Then she silently corrected herself.

  She would have known him.

  Jack and Owen were shoved through the crowd, then forced to their knees beside Strad.

  Alive. They’re all alive.

  “You see,” Wallace said, “we have our own Annex. Your boss calls us the Shop.”

  The Shop.

  Of course.

  The Shop wasn’t in the town. The Shop was the town.

  And Epik had sent them right into the thick of it.

  “Boys.” The sheriff pointed at the berserker. “Shoot him.”

  “Sheriff,” someone screamed. “Company!”

  Then they all smelled it.

  The town was burning. At least, part of it was.

  Smoke rose in sudden, billowing columns, and a blast followed that shook the ground.

  Wallace turned, and even through the haze of pain Rune could see her face pale. “Shit. Everybody, code thirteen! Send the fucking messenger.”

  Rune didn’t care what suddenly had the townspeople in a panic—her mind was on her men. She gathered her returning strength and flew to them.

  She broke Strad’s cuffs, then did the same for Jack and Owen. Jack, in little better shape than the berserker, put a hand under Owen’s arm and hauled him to his feet.

  Finally, leaning on each other, the crew turned to look past the running, yelling people, past the guns that had turned away from the crew and toward a new threat, past the sheriff who stood with her feet apart and a rifle in her hand.

  The rest of Shiv Crew—Raze, the twins, and Lex—strode down the shadowy, moonlit street, their own guns in their fists.

  “Fuck,” Rune whispered. “Fuck no.”

  “Rune,” Jack said. “Look behind them.”

  She did, dragging her horrified gaze from the three crew members to…

  A little Annex army.

  “The Annex sent backup,” Owen murmured, a strange look in his eyes. But there was no time to decode the mystery of Owen. Not then.

  “Let’s get on the right side,” Rune said, “so they can send these bastards to hell.”

  Another explosion sounded, and the Shop began shooting at their enemy.

  And then, more men began streaming into the town—around corners, down streets, on motorcycles. The Shop had an army of their own.

  Owen was in bad shape. The others could run to meet the crew and the Annex ops, but Owen…

  He dropped once more to his knees, his head hanging, his hair hiding his bloody face.

  She looked at Jack and Strad. “Can you make it? Can you run?”

  “Yeah,” they both said.

  “I’ve got Owen. Get in front of me and fly, boys. I’ll cover you from behind and our guys will do the rest.”

  She hoped.

  She dragged Owen to his feet. “You have to run, baby. You can rest later.”

  He grinned at her, she thought. His bruised, swollen, broken face made it hard to tell.

  But the berserker took him from her and tossed him over his shoulder. “I got him.”

  “Run,” she said. “I’ve got your backs.”

  “Rune—”

  “Go,” she said.

  Without another word, they sprinted toward their people.

  But the sheriff understood, maybe a moment too late, that they were something she could bargain with. “Stop them,” she screamed.

  Rune felt as though she ran in slow motion, knowing she could go so much faster. But she had to stay behind her men. She’d survive being shot.

  “There they are,” Levi yelled.

  She saw him turn and motion to someone behind him, and headlights nearly blinded her as a truck roared past him, heading for her and the men.

  Her body jerked as some of the Shop bullets hit her, but the Annex ops, body armor hiding most of their bodies, had converged upon the crowd and the sheriff’s men were too occupied with staying alive to concentrate on stopping Rune.

  The truck skidded to a halt, and the driver leaned over to fling open the passenger door. “Get in.”

  She helped Strad put Owen into the front seat, and Jack climbed into the back of the pickup. There was no time to feed from the berserker, though that would have helped them both.

  Strad urged her toward the back of the truck. “Get in.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m going to kill some bad guys.” She slapped the side of the truck. “Get my men out of here.”

  “Ma’am,” he said. “You don’t look—”

  She turned, murder in her heart, and streaked like the monster she was back into the battle.

  They couldn’t use her men to control her now.

  She set her monster free.

  Her monster with its anger and need and hatred.

  Its taste for blood and love of pain.

  She loosed it upon the town of Reverence, uncaring who fell beneath her claws and teeth and rage. She killed.

  And the berserker was safe.

  But then, she turned to drive her claws through the throat of a frizzy hair woman wearing a blood-spattered blouse and saw him, the fucking berserker, not two feet away from her.

  “What the fuck,” she screamed. “Berserker!”

  But dammit, hadn’t she known? He was the fucking berserker, and he wasn’t going to watch from behind Annex ops while she fought. No matter how wounded he was.

  He’d gone back inside for his spear—it flashed like lightning as he wielded it.

 
“Berserker,” she yelled again, but her voice was just one more scream in a world of screams.

  He was too busy to reassure her anyway.

  It was time to take advantage of the thinning Shop fighters and get the hell out of Reverence.

  The Annex ops began pulling back, and the Shop ops were not going to try to stop them. Too many of their people were dead.

  Sirens screamed as medical and fire came to do what they could for their town.

  Rune never saw the assassin after that first glimpse of him with Johnson. But they’d meet again. He wouldn’t be able to stay away from her.

  And the Shop wouldn’t give up a chance, no matter how slim, to take her, or to kill her.

  She had no real idea why.

  All she could do was fight the fight and make sure the bastards didn’t succeed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rune and her men were too tired to sort anything out. They were assured by Eugene that they needn’t do anything other than sleep. The Annex would take care of everything. Operatives had been sent to fetch the crew’s cars and drive them back to Ohio.

  Rune didn’t argue.

  Her men were patched up in the Annex clinic, but she went home. She might not need doctors, but she needed sleep.

  One of the ops had provided her a thermos of coffee on the copter ride out of Reverence, and she’d downed every drop within ten minutes.

  When she arrived home she stumbled to her bed and fell asleep.

  She was more worn out mentally than physically. Night after night of terrible dreams and sleeplessness had finally caught up with her.

  For the first time since the two slayers had attacked her, she really slept.

  The world let her sleep for five hours before pulling her back to reality. Splinters of light jabbed her dry eyes when she opened them a crack, and Ellie’s insistent voice assaulted her eardrums.

  “I’m sorry, Rune,” he said, patting and rubbing her arms as though she were a dangerous wolf he needed to calm. “Wake up.”

  “Shit, baby,” she muttered. Then she sat up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Got coffee?”

  “In the kitchen, waiting with breakfast.” He beamed. Even with the trouble between him and Levi, there was no keeping Ellie down for long.

  And in a way, that pissed her off. She didn’t want to judge him, didn’t want him to hear the anger in her tone, but suddenly, she couldn’t help it.